A New Genus of Characeae and New Merostomata from the Coal Measures of Nova Scotia[1]
By W. A. Bell, Ph.D.
Presented by E. M. Kindle, A.B., M.Sc, Ph.D., F.R.S.C.
(Read May Meeting, 1922)
Introduction
The plants and animais that lived in Coal Measures time make a special appeal to our imagination. For the first time in geological history we have records that enable us to picture large areas of land not as barren rock masses whose nakedness we fain would cover had we but the knowledge, but as living landscapes in which broad meandering rivers gleam amidst forests that are strange indeed to modern eyes, but that rival ours in majesty of form and size, and in potential importance to mankind.
Industrial exploitation of the long buried debris of these ancient forests for their use as fuel, has been the chief aid in satisfying our curiosity about the relationships and habits of numerous individual members of the Coal Measures plant and animal societies. Finally our knowledge has become sufficiently complete to enable us to recognize a succession in time of terrestrial dynasties during the Coal Measures and to apply this wisdom to the furtherance of new exploitation for coal.
The present paper is a brief description of several forms of this ancient life from the Coal Measures of Nova Scotia, whose remains are rare. The first to be considered are minute fruit bodies of algæ-like plants that were found by Dr. A. O. Hayes in the shale roof of a five-foot seam of coal at the St. Rose mine, Inverness county. They record the earliest known occurrence of the Charophyta or stone worts—a phylum that embraces the recent Chara, common in freshwater ponds, lakes, pools, and brackish water lagoons of to-day. In the same beds Dr. Hayes was fortunate enough to discover a carapace of a Schizopod crustacean, somewhat better preserved than the specimen that was collected by Sir J. W. Dawson from the Joggins. These two species come from the lower part of the Coal Measures.
- ↑ Published by permission of the Director, Geological Survey, Ottawa.
